Thornley

When it’s your name on the marquee, you want everything about it to be right. For Toronto’s Ian Thornley, now it is. Since branching off from his first band Big Wreck, and starting Thornley, it’s taken a couple of years for the singer-songwriter to solidify the perfect line up.

Now, after touring and writing together, Ian, guitarist Tavis Stanley, bassist Cale Gontier and drummer Eric Paul are in the studio working on the follow-up to 2004’s gold-selling debut, Come Again.

Thornley’s line-up has gone through some changes. Tavis is an original member. Recommended by Big Sugar’s Gordie Johnson, he joined in December of 2003 after Come Again was recorded, but before the first tour. Together, they toured all over North America and even went to Germany on a press tour.

Later, in 2005, the band was revamped. Eric, a good friend of Tavis’s and a former member of Big Sugar and Hawksley Workman’s band, and Cale, cousin of Three Days Grace frontman Adam Gontier, came in. Thornley and 3DG had toured many times together and Cale was 3DG’s guitar tech.

"With Big Wreck, we did a lot of experimenting," Ian says. "With this band, it's just song, song, song, song. I wanted to stack the record (Come Again) with as many great songs as I could. A lot of it has heavy parts — and I mean heavy. But it's all in the context of a song, a sweet melody. To me, that's the most important thing."

Produced by Gavin Brown (Three Days Grace, Billy Talent), the range of material is impressive, stretching from the can't-get-it-out-of-your-head hookiness of "Keep a Good Man Down," which Ian describes as “Beatlesque, but in a cool way" to the Sabbath-style riffs of "Easy Comes" to the slow and beautiful "Lies That I Believe" — “a real epic rocker," says Ian.

"There's definitely singer/songwriter vibe going on, except I am screaming it at you. Some of it I'm screaming because I've got to get it out, and some of it I'm screaming because I like to scream.”

For Ian, this band is the culmination of more than a decade's worth of playing and writing. After moving to Boston in the early ‘90s to study guitar at the prestigious Berklee College of Music, the transplanted Canadian began jamming with some American schoolmates, which eventually became Big Wreck. "I became the singer by default," Ian says, chuckling. "I was writing the stuff and couldn't find anyone to sing it who I could stand listening to."

Big Wreck recorded two albums for Atlantic Records, 1997’s double-platinum In Loving Memory Of… and 2001’s The Pleasure And The Greed. But as much as Ian enjoyed the music’s instrumental complexities, over time he found himself drawn to a more direct mode of expression. The band grew apart and eventually disbanded in 2002.

He began work on this new project, finding a valuable ally in Nickelback frontman Chad Kroeger, who had just started a record label, 604. The two had known each other since the late '90s, when Nickelback opened for Big Wreck nationally. Ian later contributed slide guitar to "Good Times Gone" from Nickelback's 2001 smash, Silver Side Up. Chad returned the favour by signing Thornley to 604 and secured a U.S. deal with Nickelback’s label, Roadrunner.

Thornley toured all over America, and made its network television debut on Jay Leno, May 7, 2004. In Canada, the band was just as active. 604 continues to be supportive and plans to release Thornley’s new album in early 2007. Stay tuned.